Planet Cosmo Communicator
Is the Linux-compatible Cosmo Communicator PDA out of this world? Christian Cawley boldly launches a five-day mission to find out.
Is the Linux-compatible Cosmo out of this world? Christian Cawley boldly launches a five-day mission with this PDA.
Somewhere at the back of a drawer in this writer’s house is an MDA Vario, also sold as the HTC Wizard. A mobile phone with a slide-out keyboard, this was an old idea when it came out in 2005, taking inspiration from the 1997 Psion Series 5
(mine’s in the attic–ed). Sadly, the MDA Vario promised much but, hampered by smaller dimensions and one of Microsoft’s various stutters in the mobile sphere, sadly failed to fulfil expectations.
We kept hold of the Vario partly on the off-chance we could find a Linux distro that works (or a kernel that compiles), and partly because we liked the idea of a phone with a physical keyboard that’s too small to use.
Which brings us neatly back to the Psion Series 5, which lives on in spirit (if not in actuality) at Planet Computers, where a group of ex-psion engineers developed the Gemini (reviewed in LXF240) and now the Cosmo Communicator.
Keyboard evolution
The Cosmo Communicator is roughly the size of a phablet, yet is thick enough to house a slimline QWERTY keyboard that’s revealed when you unfold the clamshell device. However, before you even get to opening the PDA, there’s a greeting from the front-mounted 1.91-inch Touch OLED ‘cover’ display. This doubles as a phone dialer, complete with its own collection of settings and access to the Android address book. This delivers obvious benefits, not least of which is saving the user from having to open the device to make calls (a key shortcoming of the Gemini).
Mounted either side of the secondary display are the camera and combined fingerprint reader and volume control. This has various purposes, the most useful being activating an alternative operating system. But there’ll be more on that later.
Equipped with the same keyboard, the Cosmo Communicator does a good job in taking the Gemini to the next level. Lifting it into orbit, if you will.
Unsurprisingly for such a key feature, the keyboard has considerable importance on the device. Along with the scanner/volume control, the Cosmo Communicator has a single other hardware button accessible whether the device is open or closed. This silver button can be easily mistaken for a power button (we speak from experience), but in fact powering up and shutting down the Cosmo Communicator is via the traditional Psion Series 5 method, the Esc button.
Along with the chirpy message on the cover display, the Cosmo Communicator has a grander welcome if you boot with the keyboard open. The 5.99-inch display at 2,160x1,080 resolution has an 18:9 display ratio, and the full width is used to greet the user with the Planet Computers logo. Dropping you straight into a modified version of Android 9, the default operating system has several enhancements to cope with the additional hardware. There’s a tool for configuring the cover display, for example, and a Psion-inspired quick launch menu to open Planet’s own apps. This can be tweaked on and off as well as configuring what tools appear. Elsewhere, the keyboard backlight and behaviour of the mysterious silver hardware button can be adjusted.
Along with the stunning display, the Cosmo Communicator features dual cameras. Mounted on the display is a 5MP camera, while the outside of the camera has an impressive 24MP sensor. This features a flash for low-light photography and HDR mode.
The 128GB internal storage can be complemented with a microsd card, which sits alongside the Nano SIM. Alternative configurations are available, so two SIMS can be used at the expense of the microsd when travelling.
Switching to Linux means restarting the Cosmo Communicator and using the volume controller to select
a new partition, confirming with Esc. It’s straightforward, but for genuine productivity a mouse is desirable because none of the Linux distributions are suited to touch (and yes, that includes Ubuntu Touch – as we’ll cover).
Communicate this
Essentially an upgrade of the Gemini, a collection of enhanced communication features have been added to the Cosmo Communicator. Dual 4G, VOLTE and VILTE are chief among these, along with NFC. Call quality is good, regardless of which dialer is used. A dialer is pre-installed in Debian, although the review device ran into some trouble after use, resulting in a replacement being swiftly shipped out the same day.
The cover display on the second phone stopped working shortly after booting, but this can be flashed if needed and remains configurable, enabling you to control apps and check notifications if you’re not making calls.
Cover display aside, the main attraction of the Cosmo Communicator – 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage aside – is that QWERTY keyboard. However, if you’re not used to the Psion keyboard form factor then it’s going to take a bit of getting used to. The moment you stop thinking of it as a keyboard and switch to using it as a ‘thumb board’, however, things become easier. It’s simply not designed to provide the type of feedback that fingerbased typing expects; despite the height of the keys being comparable to a standard laptop keyboard, they’re twothirds the size in area.
Sail away, Android
Unsurprisingly, Android is the default choice on the Cosmo Communicator. Debian is preinstalled as a boot screen choice, along with Sailfish OS. Our second test unit had Ubuntu Touch installed as well, while the Planet Computers website lists Kali Linux as being a strong possibility in the future.
The usability of Ubuntu Touch is questionable on a device of this type. With a UI tuned to thumb control in portrait mode, it’s somewhat surplus to requirements on a landscape device with a hardware keyboard. Unless you have a determined desire to use Ubuntu rather than Debian, it seems a nice option, rather than the main alternative to Android.
Planet Computers has nurtured its PDA form factor since the arrival of the Gemini. The lack of realistic competitors makes it a smart choice for productivity going forward, but without more dedicated apps it seems like there could be more to come from the Cosmo Communicator. The right-side USB-C port supports a HDMI cable for video out, making this little device a potential desktop replacement.
With a slew of keyboard-enabled clamshell devices hitting the Android and Linux verticals in 2021 thanks to various crowdfunder campaigns, the Cosmo Communicator is in a prime position to capitalise.